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Ladar Levison’s resignation from Lavabit demonstrates that there are some entrepreneurs who can be trusted with protecting our innate right to privacy, both as individuals and as a whole. Unfortunately this also raises the issue that those who entrust the privacy and security of their data and communications to encryption services like Lavabit have complete power to hand over anything that is requested of them, whether or not they actually choose to comply.

The issues is not if people like Levison can create encryption services to keep our data and emails private- it’s if we can really trust them to do so. Presently, we can only trust that mass encryption services won’t read through our emails, not that they can’t. Until such a technology is developed, complete privacy will be impossible.

As consumers, we demand the right to privacy and the freedom for surveillance, and yet we’d prefer others to manage our privacy and security for us. If we want to alter the constant surveillance of the data footprints we all leave, we must collectively decide that ease of use takes the backseat to privacy and security.

The easier and more convenient Gmail and Google are for us to use, the easier surveillance and data mining become. The more faith we put in technology entrepreneurs like Levison without relying on technology and fact, the less secure our email becomes. It’s time to sacrifice the user friendly interfaces and experiences we’ve come to know and love for services that make the privacy of our data a priority.

For more information about increasing the privacy of your organization read more about Netmail Encrypt